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SNL Plans In-Show Advertising Spots

Anyone who watches “Saturday Night Live” on NBC knows the late-night program’s antics stop when the show goes to a commercial break. In one of the show’s coming broadcasts, that won’t be the case.

Viewers who stick around during the ads either during the April 8th or the April 15th broadcast of NBC’s late-night institution will glimpse a spot for Verizon written by “Weekend Update” anchor Colin Jost and featuring cast member Kenan Thompson. The bespoke pitch is part of an ongoing effort by NBC and Lorne Michaels’ hardworking crew of satirists to make the show more compelling to watch live, rather than catching up via clips next morning.

“I compared where we were in the ’70s in terms of commercial load to where we were last year. I just thought we were at a point where we were making it harder and harder to see the show live,” Michaels said. “People can DVR and scroll through the commercials and watch it the next morning, but we want them to watch it as an event show. And in exchange for losing three minutes of commercials, which makes the show go much faster, we sort of made an agreement that we would be open to working with advertisers.”